Light field perception enhancement for integral display applications

ABSTRACT

Techniques are provided for perception enhancement of light fields (LFs) for use in integral display applications. A methodology implementing the techniques according to an embodiment includes receiving one or more LF views and a disparity map associated with each LF view. The method also includes quantizing the disparity map into planes, where each plane is associated with a selected range of depth values. The method further includes slicing the LF view into layers, where each layer comprises pixels of the LF view associated with one of the planes. The method further includes shifting each of the layers in a lateral direction by an offset distance. The offset distance is based on a viewing angle associated with the LF view and further based on the depth values of the associated plane. The method also includes merging the shifted layers to generate a synthesized LF view with increased parallax.

BACKGROUND

Light fields provide the most complete representation of a scene, asthey describe the intensity of light rays emitted from any position, andin any direction, in a real world coordinate system. If captured withsufficient sampling, it is possible to steer multiple light field viewsback to an observer within a viewing zone in the coordinate system bymeans of an integral display comprising, for example, a two dimensional(2D) elemental image display and a 2D array of microlenses (orlenticular sheet). The integral display enables 3D perception of thecaptured scenes without requiring special glasses or goggles. However,due to the limited spatial resolution of the integral display (asinherently defined by the microlens pitch), the densely captured lightfields must typically be spatially under sampled so that they can fitthe display resolution. Traditionally, this is accomplished using 2Dinterpolation which locally averages the spatial pixels within a windowto produce an under sampled version of the original light field views.In the case where neighboring pixels of the light field view belong todifferent depth planes in 3D world coordinates, this under sampling canresult in relatively shallow depth perception (e.g., parallax) on theintegral display, producing unsatisfactory results. Alternatively, a 4Dinterpolation of the light field, based on spatio-angular localaveraging, may be employed. This approach, however, may only providelimited enhancement of the synthesized views, but at greatly increasedcomputational cost and with restricted rendering possibilities.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The patent or application file contains at least one drawing executed incolor. Copies of this patent or patent application publication withcolor drawing(s) will be provided by the Office upon request and paymentof the necessary fee.

Features and advantages of embodiments of the claimed subject matterwill become apparent as the following Detailed Description proceeds, andupon reference to the Drawings, wherein like numerals depict like parts.

FIG. 1 is a top level diagram of an implementation of a system for lightfield perception enhancement, configured in accordance with certainembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 illustrates the operation of a plenoptic camera to provide lightfield views, configured in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 3 illustrates the operation of an integral display, configured inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a more detailed block diagram of a light field perceptionenhancement system, configured in accordance with certain embodiments ofthe present disclosure.

FIG. 5 illustrates a processing flow of light field views and disparitymap planes, in accordance with certain embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 6 illustrates parallax boosting relative to the zero depth plane,in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a methodology for light fieldperception enhancement, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram schematically illustrating a system platformto perform light field perception enhancement, configured in accordancewith certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with referencebeing made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives,modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent in light of thisdisclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Generally, this disclosure provides techniques for light field (LF)perception enhancement on integral displays. Three-dimensional (3D)visualization, using captured light fields projected through an integraldisplay, can provide a relatively high quality and realistic 3Dperception experience for the viewer, without the requirement forspecial glasses or goggles. Resampling is typically required, however,due to the relatively lower resolution of available integral displaydevices, and this resampling can reduce the desirable parallax effectsof a realistic 3D image, resulting in shallow depth content. Thedisclosed techniques address this problem by slicing the LF data intolayers based on depth, and laterally shifting each layer by an offsetdistance with respect to the other layers. The offset distance is basedon the distance of that layer with respect to a reference plane, and onthe viewing angle. The shifted layers are recombined prior to display,resulting in enhanced parallax and improved 3D perception.

In accordance with an embodiment, the disclosed techniques can beimplemented, for example, in a computing system or a graphics processingsystem, or a software product executable or otherwise controllable bysuch systems. The system or product is configured to receive one or moreLF views and a disparity map associated with each LF view. In someembodiments, the LF views may be provided by a plenoptic camera, and thedisparity maps may be calculated from the LF views or provided from adepth camera. The system is further configured to quantize the disparitymaps into planes, where each disparity plane is associated with aselected range of depth values. The LF views are then sliced intolayers, where each layer comprises pixels of the LF view associated withone of the disparity planes. The layers are then shifted or translatedin a lateral direction (e.g., in the plane of the layer) by a calculatedoffset distance. The offset distance is based on the viewing angleassociated with the LF view and on the depth values of the associateddisparity plane with respect to a reference zero disparity plane. Thesystem is further configured to merge the shifted layers and fill anymissing or occluded data to generate a synthesized LF view withincreased parallax.

In some embodiments, the resulting synthesized LF view images may bedisplayed through an integral display device providing a 3D viewingexperience with increased parallax as the user moves within the viewingregion of the display. Additionally, in some embodiments the system isconfigured to enable the user to experience different modes of displayby adjusting operational parameters, for example to translate thelocation of rendered objects through the display surface, and to stretchor compress the perceived depth of field.

The techniques described herein may allow for improved LF perception,compared to existing methods that use 2D or 4D interpolations whichprovide limited improvement at greater computational cost. The disclosedtechniques can be implemented on a broad range of computing andcommunication platforms, including mobile devices, since the techniquesare more computationally efficient than existing methods. Thesetechniques may further be implemented in hardware or software or acombination thereof.

FIG. 1 is a top level diagram 100 of an implementation of a system forlight field perception enhancement, configured in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure. A light field imager 102is shown to capture light fields of a scene 104 which may contain anynumber of objects at varying distances from the imager. In someembodiments, the light field imager 102 may be a plenoptic camera, amulti-camera array, or any other suitable light field imaging device. Alight field perception enhancement system 106 is configured to processthe provided LF data to enhance parallax effects and improve the 3Dperception of the scene when presented to the viewer 112 through theintegral display 110. The operation of the LF perception enhancementsystem 106 will be described in greater detail below.

FIG. 2 illustrates the operation of a plenoptic camera 200 to providelight field views, configured in accordance with certain embodiments ofthe present disclosure. The plenoptic camera 200 is one example of alight field imaging device 102 and is configured to capture informationabout the light field emanating from a scene or object 202. The lightfield information includes both the spatial intensity of the emittedlight rays and the directional distribution of those light rays overmultiple color channels. The term “intensity,” which is generallyequivalent to luminance, is used herein, but it will be appreciated thatthe disclosed techniques are applicable to color (e.g., RGB) or grayscale images. Note that a conventional camera captures only theintensity of the light rays, but not the more comprehensive light fielddata, since directional content is lost through integration on the samesensor.

Plenoptic camera 200 is shown to include an objective lens 208 whichgathers the light rays emanating from (or reflected from) object 202 andfocuses those rays on a 2D array of microlenses (or lenslets) 204 at afocal image plane of the objective lens. Each lenslet then directs thelight rays, captured from different directions, to different locationson the 2D sensor array 206 so that angle information (which is alsorecorded as intensity) is retained along with the spatial content. Thisallows the sensor array to capture a representation of the light fieldview data, or some portion thereof. In some embodiments, the LF imager102 may be an integral imaging device comprising microlenses configuredto capture an image of the object as seen from the viewing angle of thatmicrolens. In some embodiments, the LF imager 102 may be a hybridcombination where microlenses sample both spatial and angular imagedata. In some embodiments, the LF imager 102 may be a multi-camera arrayaffording a relatively wider baseline between views from each camera andthus greater parallax. It will be appreciated that the disclosedtechniques are applicable to a system that employs any of these LFimaging devices. The disclosed techniques may be particularlyadvantageous for LF imaging devices such as the plenoptic camera, whichhas a smaller baseline since all views are captured form a single cameralocation, which generally results in limited parallax on the integraldisplay. The disclosed techniques transform such data so that it appearsas if the data was captured by an imaging system having a largerbaseline, resulting in improved parallax.

FIG. 3 illustrates the operation of an integral display 110, configuredin accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. Theintegral display 110 operates in essentially the reverse manner of theLF imager 102. The light field view data is displayed on a 2D elementalimage display 302 which is then projected through a 2D microlens array304. Each lenslet of the array projects light rays from a region of theobject that would have been visible to the viewer 112 from that viewer'slocation and viewing angle 310, thus providing a 3D image 308 associatedwith that viewing angle.

FIG. 4 is a more detailed block diagram of a light field perceptionenhancement system 106, configured in accordance with certainembodiments of the present disclosure. The light field (LF) perceptionenhancement system 106 is shown to include an LF preprocessing circuit402, a disparity quantization circuit 406, an LF slicing circuit 408, aparallax boosting circuit 410, a data filling circuit 412, a resamplingcircuit 414, and a lenslet image reordering circuit 416.

The LF preprocessing circuit 402 is configured to receive captured LFviews, for example from a plenoptic camera, a multi-camera array, or anyother suitable light field imaging device 102. The preprocessing circuitmay extract the raw images, for example into a rectangular grid, fromthe lenslet image of the LF imager 102 which may be provided in ahexagonal grid format. In some embodiments, LF preprocessing circuit 402is configured to perform noise-filtering, color correction, and/or imagerectification on the LF views, using known techniques in light of thepresent disclosure. Such preprocessing may improve the results obtainedfrom subsequent operations described below.

The disparity quantization circuit 406 is configured to receive adisparity map associated with each LF view and to quantize the disparitymap into multiple planes, where each disparity plane is associated witha range of depth values. In some embodiments, the multi-view disparitymaps may be provided from any suitable source 404 a, such as, forexample, a depth camera. In some embodiments, the disparity maps may beestimated from the light field views, by a multi-view disparity mapgeneration circuit 404 b. For example the disparities can be estimatedthrough block matching techniques applied to horizontal and verticalpairs of regions of the light field view data. The range of depth valuesassociated with each disparity plane (i.e., the level of quantization)may be selected based on preference for image quality versuscomputational requirements. A greater number of disparity planes withfiner quantization may improve display results provided that theoriginal disparity maps have sufficient accuracy to support the finerquantization.

The LF slicing circuit 408 is configured to slice the LF view intolayers, wherein each layer comprises pixels of the LF view associatedwith one of the disparity planes. That is to say, the LF views aresliced such that pixels which are close together in depth (i.e.,belonging to the same quantization level of the associated disparitymap) are consolidated together on the same slice. Selection of thenumber of slices involves a tradeoff between improved parallax boostingand data filling operations, as described below, and computationalburden. Additionally, there is an upper bound on the number of LF slicesthat is imposed by the subpixel accuracy of the estimated disparitymaps.

The parallax boosting circuit 410 is configured to shift or translateeach of the layers in a lateral direction (e.g., in the plane of thelayer or x,y plane) by an offset distance. The offset distance is basedon the viewing angle associated with the LF view and on the depth valuesof the disparity plane associated with that view. This is illustrated inFIG. 6, for example, where the shift 610, 612 in the x,y plane is shownto vary depending on the viewing angle 602, 604, 606 and as a functionof the depth of the view layer with respect to the zero disparity plane(ZDP) along the z axis. The parallax boosting circuit 410 is furtherconfigured to scale the offset distance to control perceived depth offield of the synthesized LF view and to enable selection of one of thedisparity planes as a reference disparity plane (the ZDP in FIG. 6), forwhich the associated LF view layer is not shifted.

In some embodiments, a user of the system can set operational parametersto control aspects of the parallax boosting effect. For example, a scalefactor for the maximum shift (in pixels), DIncrement, can be selected tocontrol the perceived depth of field which induces stretching andcompressing effects in the perceived 3D image at the integral display.The parameter, DIncrement, is upper-bounded by the physical depth offield of the integral display, which in turn is imposed by the angularresolution of the display (e.g., the number of pixels beneath eachmicrolens). This can result in aliasing artifacts if a certain thresholdis exceeded. If DIncrement is set to zero, then no parallax boosting (orsubsequent data filling) is performed and the LF content is displayed inthe same manner it was captured. Additionally, the user can select theZDP reference plane, for example in normalized coordinates ranging from0 to 1. A ZDP=0 can create a “pop-up” mode where images are shifted withrespect to the background, a ZDP=0.5 can create a “halved” mode whereimage shifting is split with respect to the central layer, and a ZDP=1can create a virtual mode where images are shifted with respect to thefront layer. Selection of ZDP can thus enable the translation of therendered depth of field forward through the display surface, generatingfloating objects above the screen and virtual objects beneath thescreen.

The sliced layers for each of the views are translated in theappropriate x,y directions relative to their normalized angular anddisparity values with respect to a reference plane (e.g., the ZDP)according to the following equations:

Shift_(x) _(i,k) =└Ang _(x) _(i) *(QuantD _(k) −ZDP)*DIncrement┐

Shift_(y) _(j,k) =└Ang _(y) _(j) *(QuantD _(k) −ZDP)*DIncrement┐

where Ang_(x), Ang_(y) are the normalized angular coordinates, forexample in the range [−0.5, 0.5] and indexed by i and j; QuantD is thenormalized quantized depth map, for example in the range [0,1] andindexed by k; and the rounding operator └.┐ signifies rounding to thenearest integer for improved data filling. As can be seen from theseequations, and as illustrated in FIG. 6, the slice of the central view(Ang_(x) _(i) =Ang_(y) _(j) =0) corresponding to the ZDP will undergo noshifting (Shift_(x)=Shift_(y)=0), while the slice at the most extremeview angle and farthest distance from the reference plane will undergothe largest shifts.

The parallax boosting circuit 410 is further configured to merge theshifted layers to generate a synthesized LF view with increasedparallax. The slices are merged together, for example in ascending depthorder, such that the upper layers (e.g., closer to the viewer) mayoverwrite the underlying layers to support occlusion of objects orregions as seen from the observer's position or perspective.

The data filling circuit 412 is configured to perform nearestinterpolation and median filtering on the synthesized LF view togenerate data to fill occluded regions of the synthesized LF view. As aconsequence of the parallax boost, new views are synthesized that mayinclude different occluded objects. Pixels in the lower layers withinthe occlusion areas will be overwritten by pixels in the upper layers,while pixels in the non-occluded areas affected by the translatingshifts will have missing data (e.g., black regions) that requirefilling. As described previously, in some embodiments, the slicetranslations may be constrained to integer values so that intensityvalues at slice boundaries are not be spread over neighboring pixels.This improves data filling in the dark regions since the boundary pixelswill be utilized to interpolate the missing data. A nearestinterpolation technique provides data filling while maintainingsharpness. Subsequent application of a median filter, for example usinga window size on the order of 3×3 pixels, removes odd pixels in thefilled regions.

The resampling circuit 414 is configured to perform spatial and angularresampling of the synthesized LF view to match the display deviceresolution. The LF resolution at the display stage typically differsfrom the resolution at the image capture stage, for example due tooptimizations to improve the viewing zone (also referred to as theeyebox) and depth of field, while maintaining a desired spatio-angularresolution. Thus resampling circuit 414 is employed to perform linearinterpolation in the spatial domain followed by interpolation in theangular domain to match the resolution specifications for the displaydevice.

The lenslet image reordering circuit 416 is configured to reorder thesynthesized LF view images so that pixels corresponding to the samespatial indices are stacked together to form the lenslet image to bedisplayed beneath an associated microlens. Said differently, the firstspatial pixel across all of the images are stacked together to beprojected through the same microlens, the second spatial pixel acrossall of the images are stacked together to be projected through anothermicrolens, etc.

The resulting synthesized LF view images may then be displayed throughthe integral display device providing a 3D viewing experience withincreased parallax as the user moves within the eyebox of the display.Additionally, in some embodiments the system is configured to enable theuser to experience different modes of display by adjusting operationalparameters. For example, as described above, the ZDP can be adjusted toaffect the translation of rendered objects through the display surface,and the translation scale factor (DIncrment) can be adjusted to stretchor compress the rendered depth of field. The parameters may be adjusteddynamically and the operations, from LF slicing to Lenslet Reordering,may be repeated to update the lenslet image.

FIG. 5 illustrates a processing flow 500 of light field views anddisparity map planes, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure. As described above, LF views 504 and associateddisparity maps 502 are provided for processing by LF perceptionenhancement system 106. In this example, 3 LF views and 3 depth layersare illustrated for simplicity. The views are sliced into layers basedon depth 506. At any given depth, there may be multiple sliced views 508associated with different viewing angles. After shifting, the viewslices and recombined or merged into depth-enhanced light field views510 which are resampled and reordered, as described above, to generatesynthesized LF view images. A resulting lenslet image 512 is shown,which will be displayed beneath the microlenses of the integral display.

FIG. 6 illustrates parallax boosting relative to the zero depth plane,in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. Threeexamples of view slice shifting are shown, corresponding to differentviewing angles 602, 604, 606 in an x,y,z axis coordinate system. Theillustrated shifting is restricted to the horizontal, or x axisdirection, as the viewing angle rotates about the y axis, for simplicityof illustration. The view slice layers 620 are in the x,y plane, whiledepth runs along the z axis from one layer to the next. In all threeexamples, the ZDP plane is selected at the depth midpoint (e.g.,ZDP=0.5).

For viewing angle 602, which is straight on, no shifting or translatingis needed or performed. This follows from the shift equation above,where Angx and Angy are zero for straight on viewing. As the viewingangle 604 shifts to the left (negative x axis direction), the layersbehind the ZDP shift to the left 610 and the layers in front of the ZDPshift to the right 612. The shift increases with distance from the ZDP.Continuing with this example, as the viewing angle 606 shifts stillfurther to the left, the layers continue to shift still further to theleft 614 and right 616. A similar shifting effect would be seen in theydirection if the viewing angle changed to a lower or higher position.

Methodology

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an example method 700 for light fieldperception enhancement, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure. As can be seen, example method 700 includes a numberof phases and sub-processes, the sequence of which may vary from oneembodiment to another. However, when considered in the aggregate, thesephases and sub-processes form a process for light field perceptionenhancement in accordance with certain of the embodiments disclosedherein. These embodiments can be implemented, for example using thesystem architecture illustrated in FIG. 4 as described above. Howeverother system architectures can be used in other embodiments, as will beapparent in light of this disclosure. To this end, the correlation ofthe various functions shown in FIG. 7 to the specific componentsillustrated in the other figures is not intended to imply any structuraland/or use limitations. Rather, other embodiments may include, forexample, varying degrees of integration wherein multiple functionalitiesare effectively performed by one system. For example, in an alternativeembodiment a single module can be used to perform all of the functionsof method 700. Thus other embodiments may have fewer or more modulesand/or sub-modules depending on the granularity of implementation. Instill other embodiments, the methodology depicted can be implemented asa computer program product including one or more non-transitory machinereadable mediums that when executed by one or more processors cause themethodology to be carried out. Numerous variations and alternativeconfigurations will be apparent in light of this disclosure.

As illustrated in FIG. 7, in one embodiment, method 700 for light fieldperception enhancement commences by receiving, at operation 710, one ormore LF views. In some embodiments, the LF views may be generated by aplenoptic camera, a multi-camera array, or any other suitable lightfield imager.

Next, at operation 720, disparity maps associated with each of the LFviews are also received. In some embodiments, the disparity maps may begenerated by a depth camera. In some embodiments, the disparity maps maybe estimated, for example through block matching techniques applied tohorizontal and vertical pairs of regions of the light field view data.

At operation 730, the disparity maps are quantized into a desired numberof planes. Each disparity plane is associated with a selected range ofdepth values. At operation 740, the LF view is sliced into multiplelayers. Each layer comprises pixels of the LF view associated with oneof the disparity planes. Said differently, each slice or layer isassociated with a depth range.

At operation 750, each of the layers is shifted in a lateral direction(e.g., in the x, y plane) by an offset distance to boost the parallaxeffect. The offset distance is calculated based on the viewing angleassociated with the LF view and on the depth values associated with thatlayer with respect to the ZDP. In some embodiments, the offset distancemay be scaled to control perceived depth of field of the synthesized LFview. Additionally, one of the disparity planes may be selected as areference disparity plane for which the associated LF view layer is notshifted.

At operation 760, the shifted layers are merged to generate synthesizedLF views with enhanced perception due to the increased parallax. In someembodiments, the synthesized LF views may be displayed on an integraldisplay configured to provide 3-dimensional viewing.

Of course, in some embodiments, additional operations may be performed,as previously described in connection with the system. For example,nearest interpolation and median filtering may be performed on thesynthesized LF view to generate data to fill occluded regions that mayresult from application of these techniques.

Further additional operations may include performing spatial and angularresampling of the synthesized LF view to match the display deviceresolution of the target display device (e.g., the integral display). Insome embodiments, the LF views may be preprocessed for noise-filtering,color correction, and/or image rectification.

Example System

FIG. 8 illustrates an example system 800 to perform light fieldperception enhancement, configured in accordance with certainembodiments of the present disclosure. In some embodiments, system 800comprises a platform 810 which may host, or otherwise be incorporatedinto a personal computer, workstation, laptop computer, ultra-laptopcomputer, tablet, touchpad, portable computer, handheld computer,palmtop computer, personal digital assistant (PDA), cellular telephone,combination cellular telephone and PDA, smart device (for example,smartphone or smart tablet), mobile internet device (MID), messagingdevice, data communication device, a television (TV), a smart TV, a TVreceiver/converter or set top box, and so forth. Any combination ofdifferent devices may be used in certain embodiments.

In some embodiments, platform 810 may comprise any combination of aprocessor 820, a memory 830, light field perception enhancement system106, a network interface 840, an input/output (I/O) system 850, LFImager 102, integral display 110, a user interface 860 and a storagesystem 870. As can be further seen, a bus and/or interconnect 892 isalso provided to allow for communication between the various componentslisted above and/or other components not shown. Platform 810 can becoupled to a network 894 through network interface 840 to allow forcommunications with other computing devices, platforms or resources.Other componentry and functionality not reflected in the block diagramof FIG. 8 will be apparent in light of this disclosure, and it will beappreciated that other embodiments are not limited to any particularhardware configuration.

Processor 820 can be any suitable processor, and may include one or morecoprocessors or controllers, such as an audio processor or a graphicsprocessing unit, to assist in control and processing operationsassociated with system 800. In some embodiments, the processor 820 maybe implemented as any number of processor cores. The processor (orprocessor cores) may be any type of processor, such as, for example, amicro-processor, an embedded processor, a digital signal processor(DSP), a graphics processor (GPU), a network processor, a fieldprogrammable gate array or other device configured to execute code. Theprocessors may be multithreaded cores in that they may include more thanone hardware thread context (or “logical processor”) per core. Processor820 may be implemented as a complex instruction set computer (CISC) or areduced instruction set computer (RISC) processor. In some embodiments,processor 820 may be configured as an x86 instruction set compatibleprocessor.

In some embodiments, the disclosed techniques for LF perceptionenhancement can be implemented in a parallel fashion, where tasks may bedistributed across multiple CPU/GPU cores or other cloud based resourcesto enable real-time processing from image capture to display.

Memory 830 can be implemented using any suitable type of digital storageincluding, for example, flash memory and/or random access memory (RAM).In some embodiments, the memory 830 may include various layers of memoryhierarchy and/or memory caches as are known to those of skill in theart. Memory 830 may be implemented as a volatile memory device such as,but not limited to, a RAM, dynamic RAM (DRAM), or static RAM (SRAM)device. Storage system 870 may be implemented as a non-volatile storagedevice such as, but not limited to, one or more of a hard disk drive(HDD), a solid state drive (SSD), a universal serial bus (USB) drive, anoptical disk drive, tape drive, an internal storage device, an attachedstorage device, flash memory, battery backed-up synchronous DRAM(SDRAM), and/or a network accessible storage device. In someembodiments, storage 870 may comprise technology to increase the storageperformance enhanced protection for valuable digital media when multiplehard drives are included.

Processor 820 may be configured to execute an Operating System (OS) 880which may comprise any suitable operating system, such as Google Android(Google Inc., Mountain View, Calif.), Microsoft Windows (MicrosoftCorp., Redmond, Wash.), Apple OS X (Apple Inc., Cupertino, Calif.), orLinux. As will be appreciated in light of this disclosure, thetechniques provided herein can be implemented without regard to theparticular operating system provided in conjunction with system 800, andtherefore may also be implemented using any suitable existing orsubsequently-developed platform.

Network interface circuit 840 can be any appropriate network chip orchipset which allows for wired and/or wireless connection between othercomponents of computer system 800 and/or network 894, thereby enablingsystem 800 to communicate with other local and/or remote computingsystems, servers, cloud-based servers and/or resources. Wiredcommunication may conform to existing (or yet to be developed)standards, such as, for example, Ethernet. Wireless communication mayconform to existing (or yet to be developed) standards, such as, forexample, cellular communications including LTE (Long Term Evolution),Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi), Bluetooth, and/or Near Field Communication(NFC). Exemplary wireless networks include, but are not limited to,wireless local area networks, wireless personal area networks, wirelessmetropolitan area networks, cellular networks, and satellite networks.

I/O system 850 may be configured to interface between various I/Odevices and other components of computer system 800. I/O devices mayinclude, but not be limited to, LF imager 102, integral display 110,user interface 860, and other devices not shown such as a keyboard,mouse, microphone, and speaker, etc.

It will be appreciated that in some embodiments, the various componentsof the system 800 may be combined or integrated in a system-on-a-chip(SoC) architecture. In some embodiments, the components may be hardwarecomponents, firmware components, software components or any suitablecombination of hardware, firmware or software.

LF perception enhancement system 106 is configured to provide enhanced3D display of light fields on integral displays using parallax boostingtechniques. These techniques use disparity maps to slice the LF viewsinto multiple planes which may then be laterally shifted, based onviewing angle and distance to the ZDP, and then recombined into asynthesized LF view with increased parallax. LF perception enhancementsystem 106 may include any or all of the components illustrated in FIGS.1-5, as described above. LF perception enhancement system 106 can beimplemented or otherwise used in conjunction with a variety of suitablesoftware and/or hardware that is coupled to or that otherwise forms apart of platform 810. LF perception enhancement system 106 canadditionally or alternatively be implemented or otherwise used inconjunction with user I/O devices that are capable of providinginformation to, and receiving information and commands from, a user.These I/O devices may include devices collectively referred to as userinterface 860. In some embodiments, user interface 860 may include atextual input device such as a keyboard, and a pointer-based inputdevice such as a mouse. Other input/output devices that may be used inother embodiments include a touchscreen, a touchpad, a microphone,and/or a speaker. Still other input/output devices can be used in otherembodiments. Further examples of user input may include gesture ormotion recognition and facial tracking.

In some embodiments, LF perception enhancement system 106 may beinstalled local to system 800, as shown in the example embodiment ofFIG. 8. Alternatively, system 800 can be implemented in a client-serverarrangement wherein at least some functionality associated with thesecircuits is provided to system 800 using an applet, such as a JavaScriptapplet, or other downloadable module. Such a remotely accessible moduleor sub-module can be provisioned in real-time, in response to a requestfrom a client computing system for access to a given server havingresources that are of interest to the user of the client computingsystem. In such embodiments the server can be local to network 894 orremotely coupled to network 894 by one or more other networks and/orcommunication channels. In some cases access to resources on a givennetwork or computing system may require credentials such as usernames,passwords, and/or compliance with any other suitable security mechanism.

In various embodiments, system 800 may be implemented as a wirelesssystem, a wired system, or a combination of both. When implemented as awireless system, system 800 may include components and interfacessuitable for communicating over a wireless shared media, such as one ormore antennae, transmitters, receivers, transceivers, amplifiers,filters, control logic, and so forth. An example of wireless sharedmedia may include portions of a wireless spectrum, such as the radiofrequency spectrum and so forth. When implemented as a wired system,system 800 may include components and interfaces suitable forcommunicating over wired communications media, such as input/outputadapters, physical connectors to connect the input/output adaptor with acorresponding wired communications medium, a network interface card(NIC), disc controller, video controller, audio controller, and soforth. Examples of wired communications media may include a wire, cablemetal leads, printed circuit board (PCB), backplane, switch fabric,semiconductor material, twisted pair wire, coaxial cable, fiber optics,and so forth.

Various embodiments may be implemented using hardware elements, softwareelements, or a combination of both. Examples of hardware elements mayinclude processors, microprocessors, circuits, circuit elements (forexample, transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and so forth),integrated circuits, ASICs, programmable logic devices, digital signalprocessors, FPGAs, logic gates, registers, semiconductor devices, chips,microchips, chipsets, and so forth. Examples of software may includesoftware components, programs, applications, computer programs,application programs, system programs, machine programs, operatingsystem software, middleware, firmware, software modules, routines,subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces,application program interfaces, instruction sets, computing code,computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words, values,symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an embodimentis implemented using hardware elements and/or software elements may varyin accordance with any number of factors, such as desired computationalrate, power level, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input datarates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds, and otherdesign or performance constraints.

Some embodiments may be described using the expression “coupled” and“connected” along with their derivatives. These terms are not intendedas synonyms for each other. For example, some embodiments may bedescribed using the terms “connected” and/or “coupled” to indicate thattwo or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact witheach other. The term “coupled,” however, may also mean that two or moreelements are not in direct contact with each other, but yet stillcooperate or interact with each other.

The various embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented in variousforms of hardware, software, firmware, and/or special purposeprocessors. For example, in one embodiment at least one non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium has instructions encoded thereon that,when executed by one or more processors, cause one or more of the LFperception enhancement methodologies disclosed herein to be implemented.The instructions can be encoded using a suitable programming language,such as C, C++, object oriented C, Java, JavaScript, Visual Basic .NET,Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC), oralternatively, using custom or proprietary instruction sets. Theinstructions can be provided in the form of one or more computersoftware applications and/or applets that are tangibly embodied on amemory device, and that can be executed by a computer having anysuitable architecture. In one embodiment, the system can be hosted on agiven website and implemented, for example, using JavaScript or anothersuitable browser-based technology. For instance, in certain embodiments,the system may leverage processing resources provided by a remotecomputer system accessible via network 894. In other embodiments, thefunctionalities disclosed herein can be incorporated into other softwareapplications, such as virtual reality applications, gaming applications,entertainment applications, and/or other video processing applications.The computer software applications disclosed herein may include anynumber of different modules, sub-modules, or other components ofdistinct functionality, and can provide information to, or receiveinformation from, still other components. These modules can be used, forexample, to communicate with input and/or output devices such as adisplay screen, a touch sensitive surface, a printer, and/or any othersuitable device. Other componentry and functionality not reflected inthe illustrations will be apparent in light of this disclosure, and itwill be appreciated that other embodiments are not limited to anyparticular hardware or software configuration. Thus in other embodimentssystem 800 may comprise additional, fewer, or alternative subcomponentsas compared to those included in the example embodiment of FIG. 8.

The aforementioned non-transitory computer readable medium may be anysuitable medium for storing digital information, such as a hard drive, aserver, a flash memory, and/or random access memory (RAM), or acombination of memories. In alternative embodiments, the componentsand/or modules disclosed herein can be implemented with hardware,including gate level logic such as a field-programmable gate array(FPGA), or alternatively, a purpose-built semiconductor such as anapplication-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). Still other embodimentsmay be implemented with a microcontroller having a number ofinput/output ports for receiving and outputting data, and a number ofembedded routines for carrying out the various functionalities disclosedherein. It will be apparent that any suitable combination of hardware,software, and firmware can be used, and that other embodiments are notlimited to any particular system architecture.

Some embodiments may be implemented, for example, using a machinereadable medium or article which may store an instruction or a set ofinstructions that, if executed by a machine, may cause the machine toperform a method and/or operations in accordance with the embodiments.Such a machine may include, for example, any suitable processingplatform, computing platform, computing device, processing device,computing system, processing system, computer, process, or the like, andmay be implemented using any suitable combination of hardware and/orsoftware. The machine readable medium or article may include, forexample, any suitable type of memory unit, memory device, memoryarticle, memory medium, storage device, storage article, storage medium,and/or storage unit, such as memory, removable or non-removable media,erasable or non-erasable media, writeable or rewriteable media, digitalor analog media, hard disk, floppy disk, compact disk read only memory(CD-ROM), compact disk recordable (CD-R) memory, compact diskrewriteable (CR-RW) memory, optical disk, magnetic media,magneto-optical media, removable memory cards or disks, various types ofdigital versatile disk (DVD), a tape, a cassette, or the like. Theinstructions may include any suitable type of code, such as source code,compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamiccode, encrypted code, and the like, implemented using any suitable highlevel, low level, object oriented, visual, compiled, and/or interpretedprogramming language.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, it may be appreciated that termssuch as “processing,” “computing,” “calculating,” “determining,” or thelike refer to the action and/or process of a computer or computingsystem, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and/ortransforms data represented as physical quantities (for example,electronic) within the registers and/or memory units of the computersystem into other data similarly represented as physical quantitieswithin the registers, memory units, or other such information storagetransmission or displays of the computer system. The embodiments are notlimited in this context.

The terms “circuit” or “circuitry,” as used in any embodiment herein,are functional and may comprise, for example, singly or in anycombination, hardwired circuitry, programmable circuitry such ascomputer processors comprising one or more individual instructionprocessing cores, state machine circuitry, and/or firmware that storesinstructions executed by programmable circuitry. The circuitry mayinclude a processor and/or controller configured to execute one or moreinstructions to perform one or more operations described herein. Theinstructions may be embodied as, for example, an application, software,firmware, etc. configured to cause the circuitry to perform any of theaforementioned operations. Software may be embodied as a softwarepackage, code, instructions, instruction sets and/or data recorded on acomputer-readable storage device. Software may be embodied orimplemented to include any number of processes, and processes, in turn,may be embodied or implemented to include any number of threads, etc.,in a hierarchical fashion. Firmware may be embodied as code,instructions or instruction sets and/or data that are hard-coded (e.g.,nonvolatile) in memory devices. The circuitry may, collectively orindividually, be embodied as circuitry that forms part of a largersystem, for example, an integrated circuit (IC), an application-specificintegrated circuit (ASIC), a system on-chip (SoC), desktop computers,laptop computers, tablet computers, servers, smart phones, etc. Otherembodiments may be implemented as software executed by a programmablecontrol device. In such cases, the terms “circuit” or “circuitry” areintended to include a combination of software and hardware such as aprogrammable control device or a processor capable of executing thesoftware. As described herein, various embodiments may be implementedusing hardware elements, software elements, or any combination thereof.Examples of hardware elements may include processors, microprocessors,circuits, circuit elements (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors,inductors, and so forth), integrated circuits, application specificintegrated circuits (ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digitalsignal processors (DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), logicgates, registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chip sets,and so forth.

Numerous specific details have been set forth herein to provide athorough understanding of the embodiments. It will be understood by anordinarily-skilled artisan, however, that the embodiments may bepracticed without these specific details. In other instances, well knownoperations, components and circuits have not been described in detail soas not to obscure the embodiments. It can be appreciated that thespecific structural and functional details disclosed herein may berepresentative and do not necessarily limit the scope of theembodiments. In addition, although the subject matter has been describedin language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts,it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appendedclaims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or actsdescribed herein. Rather, the specific features and acts describedherein are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Further Example Embodiments

The following examples pertain to further embodiments, from whichnumerous permutations and configurations will be apparent.

Example 1 is a processor-implemented method for light field (LF)perception enhancement. The method comprises: receiving, by a processor,one or more LF views; quantizing, by the processor, a disparity mapassociated with each of the LF views into a plurality of planes, eachplane associated with a range of depth values, the range based on thequantization; slicing, by the processor, the LF view into a plurality oflayers, wherein each layer comprises pixels of the LF view associatedwith one of the planes; shifting, by the processor, each of the layersin a lateral direction by an offset distance based on a viewing angleassociated with the LF view and further based on a distance between theassociated plane and a reference plane; and merging, by the processor,the shifted layers to generate a synthesized LF view with increasedparallax.

Example 2 includes the subject matter of Example 1, further comprisingperforming nearest interpolation and median filtering on the synthesizedLF view to generate data to fill occluded regions of the synthesized LFview.

Example 3 includes the subject matter of Examples 1 or 2, furthercomprising performing spatial and angular resampling of the synthesizedLF view to match a display device resolution.

Example 4 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 1-3, furthercomprising displaying the synthesized LF view on an integral displayconfigured to provide 3-dimensional viewing.

Example 5 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 1-4, furthercomprising preprocessing of the LF views, the preprocessing comprisingone or more of noise-filtering, color correction, and imagerectification.

Example 6 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 1-5, furthercomprising scaling the offset distance to control perceived depth offield of the synthesized LF view.

Example 7 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 1-6, furthercomprising selecting one of the planes as the reference plane for whichthe associated LF view layer is not shifted.

Example 8 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 1-7, furthercomprising receiving the LF views from one of a plenoptic camera and amulti-camera array.

Example 9 is a system for light field (LF) perception enhancement. Thesystem comprises: an LF preprocessing circuit to receive one or more LFviews; a disparity quantization circuit to receive a disparity mapassociated with each LF view and to quantize the disparity map into aplurality of planes, each plane associated with a range of depth values,the range based on the quantization; an LF slicing circuit to slice theLF view into a plurality of layers, wherein each layer comprises pixelsof the LF view associated with one of the planes; and a parallaxboosting circuit to shift each of the layers in a lateral direction byan offset distance based on a viewing angle associated with the LF viewand further based on a distance between the associated plane and areference plane, and further to merge the shifted layers to generate asynthesized LF view with increased parallax.

Example 10 includes the subject matter of Example 9, further comprisinga data filling circuit to perform nearest interpolation and medianfiltering on the synthesized LF view to generate data to fill occludedregions of the synthesized LF view.

Example 11 includes the subject matter of Examples 9 or 10, furthercomprising a resampling circuit to perform spatial and angularresampling of the synthesized LF view to match a display deviceresolution.

Example 12 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 9-11, furthercomprising an integral display configured to provide 3-dimensionalviewing of the synthesized LF view.

Example 13 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 9-12, whereinthe LF preprocessing circuit is further to perform one or more ofnoise-filtering, color correction, and image rectification on thereceived LF views.

Example 14 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 9-13, whereinthe parallax boosting circuit is further to scale the offset distance tocontrol perceived depth of field of the synthesized LF view.

Example 15 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 9-14, whereinthe parallax boosting circuit is further to enable selection of one ofthe planes as the reference plane for which the associated LF view layeris not shifted.

Example 16 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 9-15, furthercomprising one of a plenoptic camera and a multi-camera array, tocapture the LF views.

Example 17 is at least one non-transitory computer readable storagemedium having instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by one ormore processors, result in the following operations for light field (LF)perception enhancement. The operations comprise: receiving one or moreLF views; quantizing a disparity map associated with each of the LFviews into a plurality of planes, each plane associated with a range ofdepth values, the range based on the quantization; slicing the LF viewinto a plurality of layers, wherein each layer comprises pixels of theLF view associated with one of the planes; shifting each of the layersin a lateral direction by an offset distance based on a viewing angleassociated with the LF view and further based on a distance between theassociated plane and a reference plane; and merging the shifted layersto generate a synthesized LF view with increased parallax.

Example 18 includes the subject matter of Example 17, the operationsfurther comprising performing nearest interpolation and median filteringon the synthesized LF view to generate data to fill occluded regions ofthe synthesized LF view.

Example 19 includes the subject matter of Examples 17 or 18, furthercomprising performing spatial and angular resampling of the synthesizedLF view to match a display device resolution.

Example 20 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 17-19, furthercomprising displaying the synthesized LF view on an integral displayconfigured to provide 3-dimensional viewing.

Example 21 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 17-20, furthercomprising preprocessing of the LF views, the preprocessing comprisingone or more of noise-filtering, color correction, and imagerectification.

Example 22 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 17-21, furthercomprising scaling the offset distance to control perceived depth offield of the synthesized LF view.

Example 23 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 17-22, furthercomprising selecting one of the planes as the reference plane for whichthe associated LF view layer is not shifted.

Example 24 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 17-23, furthercomprising receiving the LF views from one of a plenoptic camera and amulti-camera array.

Example 25 is a system for light field (LF) perception enhancement. Thesystem comprises: means for receiving one or more LF views; means forquantizing a disparity map associated with each of the LF views into aplurality of planes, each plane associated with a range of depth values,the range based on the quantization; means for slicing the LF view intoa plurality of layers, wherein each layer comprises pixels of the LFview associated with one of the planes; means for shifting each of thelayers in a lateral direction by an offset distance based on a viewingangle associated with the LF view and further based on a distancebetween the associated plane and a reference plane; and means formerging the shifted layers to generate a synthesized LF view withincreased parallax.

Example 26 includes the subject matter of Example 25, further comprisingmeans for performing nearest interpolation and median filtering on thesynthesized LF view to generate data to fill occluded regions of thesynthesized LF view.

Example 27 includes the subject matter of Examples 25 or 26, furthercomprising means for performing spatial and angular resampling of thesynthesized LF view to match a display device resolution.

Example 28 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 25-27, furthercomprising means for displaying the synthesized LF view on an integraldisplay configured to provide 3-dimensional viewing.

Example 29 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 25-28, furthercomprising means for preprocessing of the LF views, the preprocessingcomprising one or more of noise-filtering, color correction, and imagerectification.

Example 30 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 25-29, furthercomprising means for scaling the offset distance to control perceiveddepth of field of the synthesized LF view.

Example 31 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 25-30, furthercomprising means for selecting one of the planes as the reference planefor which the associated LF view layer is not shifted.

Example 32 includes the subject matter of any of Examples 25-31, furthercomprising means for receiving the LF views from one of a plenopticcamera and a multi-camera array.

The terms and expressions which have been employed herein are used asterms of description and not of limitation, and there is no intention,in the use of such terms and expressions, of excluding any equivalentsof the features shown and described (or portions thereof), and it isrecognized that various modifications are possible within the scope ofthe claims. Accordingly, the claims are intended to cover all suchequivalents. Various features, aspects, and embodiments have beendescribed herein. The features, aspects, and embodiments are susceptibleto combination with one another as well as to variation andmodification, as will be understood by those having skill in the art.The present disclosure should, therefore, be considered to encompasssuch combinations, variations, and modifications. It is intended thatthe scope of the present disclosure be limited not be this detaileddescription, but rather by the claims appended hereto. Future filedapplications claiming priority to this application may claim thedisclosed subject matter in a different manner, and may generallyinclude any set of one or more elements as variously disclosed orotherwise demonstrated herein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A processor-implemented method for light field(LF) perception enhancement, the method comprising: receiving, by aprocessor, one or more LF views; quantizing, by the processor, adisparity map associated with each of the LF views into a plurality ofplanes, each plane associated with a range of depth values, the rangebased on the quantization; slicing, by the processor, the LF view into aplurality of layers, wherein each layer comprises pixels of the LF viewassociated with one of the planes; shifting, by the processor, each ofthe layers in a lateral direction by an offset distance based on aviewing angle associated with the LF view and further based on adistance between the associated plane and a reference plane; andmerging, by the processor, the shifted layers to generate a synthesizedLF view with increased parallax.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising performing nearest interpolation and median filtering on thesynthesized LF view to generate data to fill occluded regions of thesynthesized LF view.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprisingperforming spatial and angular resampling of the synthesized LF view tomatch a display device resolution.
 4. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising displaying the synthesized LF view on an integral displayconfigured to provide 3-dimensional viewing.
 5. The method of claim 1,further comprising preprocessing of the LF views, the preprocessingcomprising one or more of noise-filtering, color correction, and imagerectification.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising scaling theoffset distance to control perceived depth of field of the synthesizedLF view.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting one ofthe planes as the reference plane for which the associated LF view layeris not shifted.
 8. The method of claim 1, further comprising receivingthe LF views from one of a plenoptic camera and a multi-camera array. 9.A system for light field (LF) perception enhancement, the systemcomprising: an LF preprocessing circuit to receive one or more LF views;a disparity quantization circuit to receive a disparity map associatedwith each LF view and to quantize the disparity map into a plurality ofplanes, each plane associated with a range of depth values, the rangebased on the quantization; an LF slicing circuit to slice the LF viewinto a plurality of layers, wherein each layer comprises pixels of theLF view associated with one of the planes; and a parallax boostingcircuit to shift each of the layers in a lateral direction by an offsetdistance based on a viewing angle associated with the LF view andfurther based on a distance between the associated plane and a referenceplane, and further to merge the shifted layers to generate a synthesizedLF view with increased parallax.
 10. The system of claim 9, furthercomprising a data filling circuit to perform nearest interpolation andmedian filtering on the synthesized LF view to generate data to filloccluded regions of the synthesized LF view.
 11. The system of claim 9,further comprising a resampling circuit to perform spatial and angularresampling of the synthesized LF view to match a display deviceresolution.
 12. The system of claim 9, further comprising an integraldisplay configured to provide 3-dimensional viewing of the synthesizedLF view.
 13. The system of claim 9, wherein the LF preprocessing circuitis further to perform one or more of noise-filtering, color correction,and image rectification on the received LF views.
 14. The system ofclaim 9, wherein the parallax boosting circuit is further to scale theoffset distance to control perceived depth of field of the synthesizedLF view.
 15. The system of claim 9, wherein the parallax boostingcircuit is further to enable selection of one of the planes as thereference plane for which the associated LF view layer is not shifted.16. The system of claim 9, further comprising one of a plenoptic cameraand a multi-camera array, to capture the LF views.
 17. At least onenon-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructionsencoded thereon that, when executed by one or more processors, result inthe following operations for light field (LF) perception enhancement,the operations comprising: receiving one or more LF views; quantizing adisparity map associated with each of the LF views into a plurality ofplanes, each plane associated with a range of depth values, the rangebased on the quantization; slicing the LF view into a plurality oflayers, wherein each layer comprises pixels of the LF view associatedwith one of the planes; shifting each of the layers in a lateraldirection by an offset distance based on a viewing angle associated withthe LF view and further based on a distance between the associated planeand a reference plane; and merging the shifted layers to generate asynthesized LF view with increased parallax.
 18. The computer readablestorage medium of claim 17, the operations further comprising performingnearest interpolation and median filtering on the synthesized LF view togenerate data to fill occluded regions of the synthesized LF view. 19.The computer readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprisingperforming spatial and angular resampling of the synthesized LF view tomatch a display device resolution.
 20. The computer readable storagemedium of claim 17, further comprising displaying the synthesized LFview on an integral display configured to provide 3-dimensional viewing.21. The computer readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprisingpreprocessing of the LF views, the preprocessing comprising one or moreof noise-filtering, color correction, and image rectification.
 22. Thecomputer readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprising scalingthe offset distance to control perceived depth of field of thesynthesized LF view.
 23. The computer readable storage medium of claim17, further comprising selecting one of the planes as the referenceplane for which the associated LF view layer is not shifted.
 24. Thecomputer readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprisingreceiving the LF views from one of a plenoptic camera and a multi-cameraarray.